If You Know Their Rules ...
You Can Play Their Games

How do the experts rate it?
Take time to do some third-party research on the make and model you'd like to buy. What do the car magazines say about it? What kind of rating does it get from Consumer Reports? What do current owners have to say? If you're concerned about the safety performance of a particular model, you can contact the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 1005 N. Glebe Road, Arlington, VA 22201 (703-247-1500). They can provide crash-test reports and cost-of-repair information. Keep in mind that those vehicles with better safety records usually have better insurance rates.

Twins
As you begin to consider various makes and models, keep in mind that most American manufacturers offer what the industry calls twins. What this means is that manufacturers will produce two cars, give each a slightly different look, give each a different name, but build them with essentially the same components. For example, Mercury Sable is essentially the same as a Ford Taurus. However, the Sable will generally run anywhere from $500 to $1,000 more for essentially the same car.

General Motors also produces twins. If you look closely at the Oldsmobiles and Buicks and compare them to Pontiacs and Chevrolets, you'll see that their primary difference can be found in some front and back styling variations and levels of interior trim. A number of years ago somebody at General Motors decided to display the full line of the cars at the General Motors building in New York. And because it was the Christmas season they thought it would be nice to have all the cars in white. What no one realized, until it was too late, is that the basic similarity of the cars made even more similar with the common color pointed out an unassailable fact: The primary difference between a Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, and Chevrolet lies not in the styling, but in the price tags.